03 January 2014 11:12 AM

The great train debacle: Have they learnt nothing from the airlines...?

By Frank Barrett, Travel Editor, The Mail on Sunday

Why is rail travel in Britain so rubbish? Each year fares go higher and higher while the level of service plunges ever lower.

The latest development is that the Government is asking rail companies to scrap First Class.

What: get rid of the carriages that are mostly empty for most of the day while people in peasant class cram into their overcrowded carriages like sardines?

Why, that’s a good idea!

For the rail companies, it’s as if Ryanair and easyJet had never happened. All the no-frills airline innovations: the bits that we like (very low fares and very modern, fuel-efficient equipment); and even the bits we don’t like (exorbitant charges for anything else) have completely gone over the heads of the rail operators.

What we have is antediluvian rolling stock (on First Great Western they’re using trains that date back to the 1960s) and a fare system that Noah was probably using on the ark.

It seems unlikely that while the Government remains wedded to the idea that rail privatisation is a good thing, any improvement to the present dire state of affairs is possible.

It’s become such a huge national priority, it’s hard to believe that the Government really believes that all our rail problems will be solved by the building of HS2. If we had a fully functioning modern railway system, HS2 would be lovely (unless you live in its proposed path).

At the moment, the idea of investing in HS2 seems rather like somebody who lives in social housing going out and borrowing £500 from Wonga to buy a 50” flat-screen TV.